Working Life

Sorry, I don’t share the optimism or excitement in the headlines about the new job figures–partly because I don’t believe this lasts. It’s funny how the elites wants to always demand that we think about how the world has become “global” when it means demanding wage cuts and acceptance of shitty trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership. But, when it comes to trumpeting the go-go U.S. “recovery”, the facts of the world are put to the side.

Especially when it comes to talking about ROBBERY.

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The campaign for a $10.10 federal minimum wage, championed by the president, Democrats in Congress and a whole raft of “liberal/progressive” organizations, is a very bad idea.

To be clear, I’m not arguing it’s too ambitious. The opposite: what we need is a campaign, now, today, for a minimum wage of $20-an-hour. Anything less is a failure to confront poverty in America and a bankrupt economic system.

$10.10-an-hour will not allow people to make a fair living, or challenge the basic, “We-make-profits-thanks-to-poverty” system that underpins today’s real world economy.

Anything short of $20-a-hour is a capitulation to the most narrow politics, particularly on the part of so-called “liberals/progressives” who are, unintentionally, locking into place deep poverty in America and ratifying the basic principle of the so-called “free market”.

And $20-an-hour actually relates to real life after you look at a very complicated idea: simple math.

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With about 250-300 ballots left to count, the ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15-an-hour in the city of SeaTac is leading by just 19 votes. It’s lost a bit of ground since Tuesday’s lead of 43 votes. But, win or lose, it could set a different standard for the debate around the minimum wage.

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You don’t have to remember much about the minimum wage debate. Except for this.

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Well, bravo for the president for going to fight for a rise in the minimum wage. But, let’s be clear — this isn’t going to do much to raise people out of poverty.

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Austerity is a bad thing. As I’ve pointed out before, when an economy is suffering from lower demand, the last thing you want to do is squeeze the pocketbooks of the very people who you want to have out there spending money. But, here’s another thing: it makes you sick. Literally.

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   What does it mean when corporate profits are up–but people aren’t buying enough to sustain those profits? As in this report today via The Wall Street Journal: A record number of U.S. companies beat earnings expectations in the third quarter, but a big portion of their profits came from cost-cutting, disappointing investors who were […]

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   I’ve made the point a lot that productivity has, over the past 30 years, soared while wages have remained flat in real terms over that period of time. That is important because when people are more productive at work that, in theory, should translate into wage increase.    Well, here is a productivity number […]

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Today brings in stark relief the economic chasm in America: the Depression is here, if you measure what real people are going through, but, on Wall Street, the party continues as, in Marie Antoinette style, financial executives reap millions while the rest of the people grasp for crumbs.   Today, David Leonhardt has an excellent […]

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   The Wall Street Journal has a story today looking at what a modern depression would look like. The story asserts: There is no consensus definition for "depression." Harvard University economist Robert Barro defines it as a decline in per-person economic output or consumption of more than 10%, and puts the odds of a depression […]

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